{"id":33596,"date":"2025-04-05T21:59:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T20:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=33596"},"modified":"2025-04-05T21:59:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T20:59:03","slug":"peace-twinning-and-music-at-st-ethelwolds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=33596","title":{"rendered":"Peace, Twinning and Music at St Ethelwold\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/25040501.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nA peace ceremony was held today in St Ethelwold\u2019s Garden beside the Peace Pole, marking the first anniversary of its installation. The Mayor of Abingdon, Councillor Gabby Barody, took part in the ceremony.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/25040502.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nAmong those attending were people from Ukraine and Afghanistan, along with civic leaders from Abingdon\u2019s twin towns, here for a Mayor\u2019s conference &#8211; a reminder of how town twinning, which grew after the Second World War, was intended to foster peace and understanding by building personal connections across borders.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/25040505.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nFormer Mayor Councillor Gwyneth Lewis spoke about the peace process in Northern Ireland and shared a photo of the Peace Bridge in Derry. There was also a talk by a speaker from The Parents Circle \u2014 a group that brings together Israelis and Palestinians for dialogue and reconciliation, and another group of ex combatants for peace. Roger Baker, from the Abingdon Peace group, led people in an affirmation of peace.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/25040503.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nAfter the ceremony, there was music played on the bandura, a traditional Ukrainian harp.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/25040504.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nCoffee, cakes, and circle dancing followed, led by women in Ukrainian costume.<\/p>\n<p>It was a lovely sunny afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A peace ceremony was held today in St Ethelwold\u2019s Garden beside the Peace Pole, marking the first anniversary of its installation. The Mayor of Abingdon, Councillor Gabby Barody, took part in the ceremony. Among those attending were people from Ukraine and Afghanistan, along with civic leaders from Abingdon\u2019s twin towns, here for a Mayor\u2019s conference [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}